Think before you click…….or stop sharing posts from Unionist press when we are winning. (you are keeping them afloat)

Yes Tactical post # 4236

Just occasionally we feel moved to make a post like this.

While the Tories have just about shot most of their toes off over the Brexit crisis and both Scottish Labour and UK HQ main branch Labour are falling over themselves to help the Tories to achieve a fantasy Brexit deal we in Scotland need to develop some discipline.

There will be tough times ahead but those times are going to be fruitful because we will soon be an independent country.

However we are our own worst enemies.

Quite often we do things that hurt our own movement. Despite being passionate about achieving independence we can be inadvertently undermining our own cause.

We have seen multiple posts of articles from mainstream unionist press being shared urging us to take part in an online poll on independence usually with a picture of Nicola Sturgeon. These are designed to get folk clicking and sharing because we all know that independence doesn’t get much main stream press attention. Well here is the problem. They are taking the piss and laughing all the way to the bank.

Here is how they fool people.

They put an article up with some obvious Unionist sourced text from a ‘pro-Union’ group. Then they invite readers to take part in an on-line poll on Scottish Independence and how you would vote now.

A new poll has found 60 per cent of Scots would vote against independence if they were asked whether to leave or remain in the United Kingdom, a landmark poll has found. The Survation poll, commissioned by a pro-Union group, found that if a referendum were held now, the majority of Scottish voters aged 16 and over would choose to stay in the UK and just 40 per cent would choose to leave, once the don’t knows are removed.

The Yes troops rise to the bait and BOOM they get over 45684 clicks on their otherwise skint newspaper that in economic terms is hanging by the proverbial baw hair.

By clicking on this ‘clickbait’ , because that is what it is, you are keeping them going. Online newspapers earn by following ways

  1. Publishing google ads
  2. Publishing ads for page per impression
  3. Paid editorials for businesses
  4. Selling media services for any specific events

So every click is income for these papers.Papers that day in day out undermine Scotland (except when it makes them money). Here is what the Indy press had to say about the poll. Incidentally the offending post came out in November 2018 but was still being circulated by Yes supporters as recently as yesterday.

The Scotsman’s rabidly pro-Union stance meant there was little sympathy amongst pro-independence social media users last week when it went into administration.  The newspaper was subsequently saved.  However this latest front page is unlikely to lead to an increase in readership amongst the independence movement.

Comment from Indyref2 blog at the time.

Based on figures on newspaper circulation for 2018 most unionist press outlets are in terminal decline. Press circulation figures are released every year. If you want to look at it in detail you have to pay.We are not about to do that so that is why we will use 2018 figures

The ABC figures for 2018 show the real reason why the Scotsman is pulling the wool over peoples eyes.

The only paper keeping a steady position is the free paper the Metro, from the Daily Mail stable and heavily reliant on adverts. The Metro’s circulation – presumably because no-one pays for it, remained steady at 1,476,169 copies for May 2018. This represented a slight decline of 0.24% on the same month in 2017. To show where the ‘UK’ newspaper readerships heads are at the Daily Mail is still the UK’s third biggest newspaper, selling 1,277,409 per day – although a chunk of these were bulk sales (airport distribution etc). This figure represents a year on year decline of 11.49%.

The Scotsman gives lots of papers away free, as do many other titles.While most of this is down to people changing the way they get their news, it also represents a significant switching off away from politics and seeking information and questioning things. The dumbing down of politics over the decades is working for the Tory press. This is why they continue to get away with murder.

Support for Indy media sources is on the rise -dont click while we are winning!

The current post reach of the Indy page we are posting from is measured in post reach on facebook and page followers. At the moment we have a post reach for the last week of 342,095. Over the last month our post reach was over 1.5 million. That’s just from a page follower base of just 32,000 and a group of volunteers.

Imagine what it would be like if those 45684 clicks went to Indy media pages instead? Some of these papers are loss making and we should not be keeping them alive.It is only prolonging our own oppression.

Support citizen journalism and think before you click.Remember they all answer to London.

London calling, yes, I was there too
And you know what they said? Well, some of it was true!
London calling at the top of the dial
And after all this, won’t you give me a smile?
London calling…

Joe Strummer.

Fiddling while Rome burns.

Scottish Tories re-ran their Party Political Broadcast tonight.It is full of clips of some of Theresa Mays most faithful MP’s doing and saying ‘couthie’ things like lifting litter and talking to shoppers on the street about how plain and ordinary and dare we say it ‘working class’ they are.

I doubt that they timed the broadcast to counteract last nights antics in the “Strangers Bar” in the House of Commons when Aberdeen South Tory MP Ross Thomson was removed from the bar by police.That said BBC can be very obliging when it comes to counter propaganda.

It has been quoted that Ross Thomson was very drunk and had engaged in touching people wearing visitors passes. A statements from a witness reads-

“He was in Strangers last night drunk and was groping young men who had guest passes on. Grabbing their backside and genitals and trying to put his hands down people’s pants.

Many people watched on in disgust and I saw someone pull him to one side to ask him to leave. He returned around four times after being chaperoned out and carried on groping people.

It became so unpleasant that the police had been called and eventually escorted him out of the bar after taking statements in the corridor. I believe the Sergeant at Arms is also aware of the incident.”

This took place last night and so far he has not surfaced to defend himself but some of his colleagues have.

Tory MP’s have said that the stress of Brexit is the explanation of his behaviour.

Here was us thinking that the heavily subsidised bar on an otherwise boring wet Tuesday night in Westminster might be more of a reason to get absolutely legless and start shoving your hands down strangers underpants?

Brexit has been stressful however.

  • It been very stressful if you have lived here for decades and brought up a family but now have to apply for the right to stay in your own home.
  • It’s stressful if you are a car worker in Sunderland who was counting on Nissan building their new car models in your home town.
  • It’s stressful if you have a life limiting illness which depends on a regular supply of life giving medicines.
  • It’s stressful if you are a small business in Ross Thomson’s constituency which is uncertain if it is going to survive a no deal Brexit.
  • It’s stressful if you are a student and hoped to go on an exchange programme to Europe that will not exist after Brexit.

We don’t believe it is that stressful for MP’s like Ross Thomson an MP unless he realises he has as good as lost his seat over Farming and Fisheries issues.But the penny has dropped too late.

We prefer to think that Ross was born out of time. He would be better off in Roman times having a bacchanalian bevvy after a hard day at the House/senate.

We can only conclude that he was just fiddling while Rome burns.

Team Yes Scotlands Future

Support Indylive.Radio -Peace, love and Scottish Independence

This week saw a new arrival on the Indy Media scene. Indy Live Radio was launched and for all of us who complain about the biased and downright boring mainstream media this should be a thing to celebrate.

Many a morning in the past I have listened to radio on the way to work or at home and felt moved to switch off just before ‘Call Kaye’ came on to discuss some banal BBC Scotland take on the state of Scotland. It usually has a distinctive, SNP-bad sub plot and is designed to set people up to undermine any positives about Scottish society and to sow the seeds of doubt and fear into people.

It is constant.The output on BBC Radio Scotland is dominated by news and ‘opinion’ until about 1.00 p.m. when it starts to ‘loosen up’ and you get the occasional arts programme and god forbid the odd track of music is played. (Thanks Janice!)

By contrast switching from BBC Scotlands output to a national BBC channel like Radio 2 it is like Scotland is a country under occupation. Turgid stories are churned out about the latest manufactured FOI driven ‘crises’ in NHS Scotland when we know we have some of the best health care and the most dedicated health care staff on the planet.

It’s like a more subtle version of the Lord Haw-Haw and Tokyo Rose propaganda broadcasts from Germany and Japan during the second world war.

Meanwhile over on Radio2 its all ‘Happy’– Pharrel Williams or ‘I feel love’– Donna Summer. Then you come home from work midweek to find that Orwell’s 1984 has become a reality and ‘compulsory sport’ is on the television and its English Premier League.Prime time evening television.

It makes us so angry………

Why shouldn’t we have a little fun now and then?

Well now we can and we will be supporting an independent citizen media broadcast outfit at the same time.

Do not expect adverts or even regular chat from a DJ or presenter. You will hear track lists of music. Pretty good uplifting stuff too.Its a good mixture. Occasionally there will be guest speakers on talking about indy related topics. Its very new and they are still testing everything out but its well worth supporting.

By having a PRS licence the station can play music all day long. The technical stuff is below but it is very easy to connect. You can either listen on-line on your laptop or computer, or you can download an app for a mobile phone and listen anywhere.

This ability to take Indy friendly media with us anywhere we go is vitally important. Building up a network of Yes facebook pages, Live streaming events, Twitter feeds and now radio broadcasts will assist our movement to not only connect with each other but reach out to a wider audience. Yes people should keep all their apps on their device handy in one place. This is how we will connect with people.

This is how we will win independence by sharing information over networks we have created ourselves.

Technical bit.

Indylive.radio can be listened to online —-> here

Simply bookmark the link to keep returning. OR you can download the app from the Google Store or Apple Store for free by searching for Indylive radio

Once downloaded you can take it with you anywhere……its important, get it now.

You can maybe comment on suitable playlists for an Indy radio station. Here are few for starters.

‘Kiss this thing goodbye’ – Del Amitri

‘Living on a prayer’ -Bon Jovi

‘Let me go’– Avril Lavaigne

‘Iron Sky’ Paolo Nutini

‘Cap in hand’– The Proclaimers

‘Son I voted Yes’– Stanley Odd

The Yes Movement needs to lighten up and you all need IndyLive Radio in your lives.

No more crabbit faced BBC Tokyo Rose in the mornings for me…..go on give it a go and tell your pals and get it shared!

Let’s get their listening figures boosted.

Peace,Love and Scottish Independence.

#PLASI